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Last week, the Republican-controlled House overwhelmingly passed a water infrastructure bill with only three members (two Republicans and one Democrat) voting against. In what must have been a moving scene for beleaguered supporters of unabated big government, tea party “radicals” joined hands with Democrats to support special interests at the expense of taxpayers.

The Water Resources Reform and Development Act (H.R. 3080) authorizes $8 billion for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projects like dam construction and river dredging that will benefit parochial constituencies and commercial interests. It’s called a “reform” bill, but a study of the bill by Taxpayers for Common Sense completely undermines that claim (see here).

The howls of outrage that have greeted the report of the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform shows two things: 1) most Democrats have no interest in reducing the size and cost of government; and 2) few Republicans are actually serious about it.

From Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal to Joe Biden’s Big F-ing Deal, progressives have led a consistent and largely successful campaign to expand the size and scope of the federal government. Now, Matt Yglesias suggests, it’s time to take a victory lap and call it a day: